September 28, 2016

The SEC charged attorney Nino Coppero del Valle who worked for Canadian-based HudBay Minerals Inc., and his friend and fellow attorney Julio Antonio Castro Roca with material nonpublic information about a tender offer HudBay had submitted to acquire the shares of Augusta Resource Corp., whose principal business involved a copper mine near Tucson, Arizona.  Castro allegedly traded on the inside information through a brokerage account held by a shell company he set up in the British Virgin Islands in an attempt to avoid having the trades traced back to him and Coppero.  According to the SEC’s complaint, Castro and Coppero made more than $112,000 in illicit profits from these unlawful trades.  The SEC further alleges that Coppero tipped acquaintance Ricardo Carrion when seeking his advice about making illegal traced untraceable.  Carrion exploited the inside information and caused his brokerage firm to purchase Augusta Resource shares ahead of the tender offer announcement.  Carrion’s firm obtained $73,000 in alleged profits.  SEC

Tagged in: Securities Fraud,